Villagers desperate to save their post office from the axe dug deep into their pockets to help buy it back and keep it open.
More than 170 residents of Shareshill, near Wolverhampton, have each coughed up £10 to prove their commitment to saving the quaint post office and shop in Church Road after it was revealed it was due to close.
The volume of support has paved the way for the committee leading the project to push ahead with securing funding to buy the post office for the community.
If the venture goes ahead it would be the first such community shop in Staffordshire.
The Shareshill Community Post Office And Shop committee would buy the business, employ staff to run it and oversee its management.
“It is expected to cost £36,000 to buy the business and pay running costs.
Current owners Phil and Margaret Paddock are resigning at the end of July.
Councillor Bob Cope, a district councillor and chairman of Shareshill Parish Council, said: “We will do anything we can to save this post office.”
2 Comments
guddy
I understand people’s frustrations at having no post office, but do they realise that this will end up costing them more than their £10 in the long run to keep it operating.
I used to run a number of sub post offices and know that the amount Post Office Ltd pay per transaction is declining and the number of clients that use the Post Office to pay/collect money is also declining. There are much cheaper and easier ways for clients to collect and pay money to and from customers.
Whilst this may be a short term fix for those who currently use the post office, it is at the end of the day a buisness and must not operate and cost people to keep it open. This cannot any longer be subsidised by the tax payer in the current financial market we are in. We must get away from using the comments that the post office is a social meeting point for people and realise that things move on!